POLITICAL BRIEFING

POLITICAL BRIEFING; Buying a Campaign For Very Little Down

By B. Drummond Ayres Jr.

Published: August 1, 1998

A generally accepted rule in California politics is that the state is so big and its television markets are so expensive that it takes a minimum of $10 million to make a good run for the United States Senate. And that doesn't include the $5 million or so, maybe even $10 million, that can be spent winning a primary to get on the fall ballot.

State Treasurer Matt Fong managed to win this year's Republican primary by spending a paltry $2.5 million. His main opponent, Darrell Issa, spent more than four times as much, $11 million, most of it from his electronics fortune.

Republican leaders figure that a candidate who can overcome a rival's 4-to-1 spending edge in a primary deserves better backing in the general. So they have ordered a full-court press for money on behalf of Mr. Fong, a moderate, confident he has a real shot at unseating the Democratic incumbent, Barbara Boxer, a liberal whose job-approval rating has seldom pushed above 50 percent in her six years in the Senate.

Latest polls have the race almost a dead heat.

The Republicans' money-raising goal for Mr. Fong: no less than $10 million.

The Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, intent on expanding the party's hold on the Senate, has called Senator Boxer's seat a No. 1 target and is considering contributing $3 million. An additional $1 million or so may be spent on the race by the Republican National Committee, party officials say.

Meanwhile, some Republican luminaries are holding fund-raisers for Mr. Fong in places as distant as New York and Washington, while others are beginning to head for California.

Jack F. Kemp, the party's 1996 Vice-Presidential nominee, worked a San Diego crowd the other day, hailing Mr. Fong as a ''21st-century Republican.'' Other high-profile figures who have agreed to make pitches around the state include the Senate majority leader, Trent Lott; Speaker Newt Gingrich; Senator John McCain of Arizona, and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York.

Strategists for Senator Boxer, who is pretty good at raising money herself, have a different take on the money press for Mr. Fong. They contend it is a measure of just how much trouble he is in.

They also point out that the Senator has a special ally when it comes to putting the arm on Democrats for donations: President Clinton.